Visit our websiite at www.artandsoulpreschool.com

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Back to School

Stepping Into A New Year

 
The start of school is always an exciting and tender time for preschoolers
and parents alike.  For many little ones this is the first time they are away from
their parents, and as fun as school is, it always takes a little time to adjust and make those big steps into a school year.




 
This year to help with making those steps into school, I wanted
to make it easier and fun to enter school.
I thought if the children were preoccupied with the footprints, their anxiety
may be relieved. So...
 
1,2 Welcome to school
3,4 Come in the door
5, 6 Take off shoes and give a kiss
7, 8 School is great
9, 10 Let's jump in
 
We kept this up for a week, so that the kids had something to focus on rather than drop off.
It seemed to work, because most mornings they have been doing just what it said...jumping right in.
 
Another activity we did those first couple days to help the children
feel more at ease in school was read and do a project based on the book
The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn and illustrated by  Nancy M, Leak
 
 
This is a beautiful story about a reluctant raccoon starting preschool.
In the story the mother raccoon places a kiss in the center of her son's hand and calls it, the "kissing hand," and whenever her son needs to feel his mother's love, he could hold his kissing hand to his face and know he is loved.
 
To help the children out, I read the story and they each received a kissing hand sticker of their own, but we also made our own kissing hands.
 

 
After they painted their hands, I placed a heart sticker on their hand, and
I loved seeing the surprised faces they had when they lifted up their hand to find
a heart in the middle of the print.
 
We also started a wall of pictures with their names written on a board in the pictures.
I placed these above the chalk board in school for the children to feel a part of the space.
I also placed them above the chalk board because some of the children are showing interest in writing their names.  This is something I hope for, but I do not pressure them into writing, I feel it should be a natural process so that they do not have resistance to letters and writing down the road.
Having their pictures with their names above the black board gives them the space to practice their names and their friends names on their own and with their own natural inclination.
 
 

 
We have a great year ahead of us!!!

3 comments:

  1. What great ideas! I would want to jump right in too!
    Once again this blog shows how much time and thought you put in to "just" a preschool program. These children are well cared for, loved and encouraged in all the right ways.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love to see what you are doing with the kids! Jenya is having such a great time at her new school - thank you!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Amazing documentation of all the work you do with the children. Looks like a super fun place to be and ought to have parents feeling like they've made the right choice!
    Thank you for your work.

    ReplyDelete